Bag of Holding: Plot Bunnies
by Another Reader
Summary: Ideas I have developed decently, but will likely not continue for the foreseeable future. More plotbunnies may arrive. entry 1: Warning- Time Travel may Hurt Brain


Harry Potter woke up in a cupboard in the house he grew up in. At least that's what Harry desperately hoped, seeing as it was dark and he kept bumping into walls. The other possibility was that the ritual had failed, and either he was dead, or he was being kept prisoner by Voldemort before his torture and execution. Seeing as he had actually been trying to end up in the cupboard, he was betting on that.

Ah, there was the door handle. Had his keepers locked the door this time? Harry opened the door carefully and adjusted to the light. Yes, unless the afterlife was very twisted, the ritual had worked, he'd come back in time. Harry almost jumped in the air and started shouting he was so happy.

'Huh? Why would I feel like doing that? I need to be sneaky.' Harry pondered. Actually, everything felt strange now that he thought about it. His thoughts were disjointed and thinking was fuzzy, and he was moving quite oddly. 'Shit, did the ritual go wrong? I'm here, but nothing feels right! Where's a calendar?'

The boy stumbled into the kitchen occasionally bumping into a wall. Thankfully, between his light weight and the Dursley's tendency to sleep heavily, he managed it without disaster.

Finding the calendar where it always was pinned, Harry relaxed. He was seven years old, and it was July seventh, seven being a magically significant number. He was surprised it wasn't 7 o'clock. The whole thing was pretty miraculous considering the shoestring operation the ritual had been anyway. Still, his body felt wrong.

"Relax Harry, you can still remember everything that happens," he said to himself. His voice surprised him. Obviously it would be different than it had been, but actually hearing it brought it all home. Harry's eyes widened and he stuck a hand down his pants. "Shit!" He looked down. "Sorry buddy, but saving the world will be worth it."

The boy got a glass of water and returned to his "bedroom." There were plans to change things this time, by necessity. By the end of the week he'd have a real room and get fed a decent amount. He didn't mind the cooking and chores that much; oh, he'd be doing a lot less for sure, but figured every kid had to do some chores. It wouldn't take much; casually mentioning that the school's guidance counselor had been asking him some questions was all it would take. The Dursleys would bend over backward if it looked like the school would find how he had been treated.

But that was ultimately unimportant in the great scheme of things. No plan survives contact with the enemy, but they had made contingencies for their contingencies. And Harry had spent months memorizing it all.

Harry lay on his tiny mattress and worried. "This uneasiness I feel is probably just an effect of the time traveling, it'll be over soon, right?" he asked at the wall. It didn't answer, which, all things considered, Harry was glad for. "Tomorrow I'll start the plans and everything will be fine for the next few years." Harry went over the first few plans again mentally. "I hope this mental fog lifts soon, I can remember the plans, but I can't understand why they work. Ugh, I need to get to sleep."

The time traveler practiced his occlumancy, hoping it would make thinking easier in the morning. Soon he was slumbering, and for the first time in years, he had a sound sleep.

•Six Months before Harry's First Year•

Dumbledore was in his office working on more paperwork, the blasted stuff seemed to multiply when he wasn't watching. Thankfully, most of it he could deal with via various magics, but some he needed to personally read and/or sign himself.

As he pored over the documents, two of his gizmos activated over his fireplace, one whistling, and one producing blue smoke. The headmaster got out of his chair and kept his hand near his wand. Seconds later a floo call established itself.

Shortly, the upper portion of a small figure wearing a hooded cloak appeared in the fireplace. Dumbledore relaxed at first, thinking that only an idiot novice would dress like this, before tensing again at the thought that many experts pretended to be idiots right up until their knife was in your back.

"Hello, who is this and how did you get this floo number?" Dumbledore asked fairly pleasantly.

"Ah, that's a long tale, and if I told you it would only raise more questions, not to mention you'd likely not believe it. I'm a friend, and I wish to hold audience with you. Let me begin with this- I swear on my magic not to intentionally harm Albus Dumbledore, or any being in Hogwarts except possibly in self defense for the next ten hours. I further swear I don't intend to act in such a way as to make self defense a likely possibility during that time."

There was a flash as magic sealed the oath into effectiveness. Dumbledore relaxed again, not so much due to the oath itself, but mostly because it was such a poor one this had to be a novice.

"You may come in, but I expect some explanations."

"Wonderful! Don't worry, I'm going to tell you so much you won't know what to do with all the intelligence!"

'By Morgana's left nipple, the man's a nutter. Still, I ought to humor him before I floo the mind healers…' Albus mentally complained.

A minute later, a small person fell out of the fireplace and slid on their face a foot.

"You think one would get used to flooing eventually wouldn't you Albus?"

The Supreme Mugwump (etc. etc.) raised an eyebrow. He had assumed that the caller was a short man, but between the voice and the shape of the body it was obviously a young child. The only reason he didn't end this nonsense immediately was because there was obviously a leak somewhere. There could be no other reason for this child to be able to floo him through the security. "I'm afraid you still have me at your advantage, if you can't give me your name, what shall I call you?"

"Hmm, oh, right! You don't know me yet! First let me tell you some earth shattering news before the big reveal. I am from many years in the future! Fifteen and change to be more precise. Riddle comes back, and your contingencies for stopping him failed disastrously."

This got Dumbledore's attention, the number who knew the Dark Lord's true name could be counted on one hand. Something serious was going on.

"Seriously, I wish you had just come out and told me the prophecy when I was a kid the first time around. I could have prepared for things, but nooooo… I've got to have a _childhood_, and didn't _that_ turn out well."

Dumbledore took the cubed root of 27 and got three. "… Harry?"

"Oh fuck, I wanted to do the big reveal too. A word of advice, large scale time travel can screw you up if you aren't careful." Harry threw back his hood, before taking off the cloak entirely. "I'll let you start the interrogation now. Be prepared for a lot of bitching though, my life's been rather unpleasant on the whole, and since I came back in time I've gone a bit barmy. I wonder if I'll understand Luna better now?"

The headmaster stared. It was definitely Harry, or possibly someone polyjuiced into him. The scar on his forehead almost entirely ruled out the possibility of an imitator though, even with polyjuice. "How… what… the future you say?"

"Yes, I was 25 when the survivors pooled together our magical power and completed the ritual. There was a chance we'd split open the fabric of space-time and create a miniature black hole, but it was much more likely that we'd just release enough energy to destroy England, and honestly some of us were hoping for either by that point."

Dumbledore was fairly well educated in muggle science for a wizard so he had a vague idea of what a black hole was. "You went through with a plan that could have killed millions? Possibly destroy the earth? What were you thinking?"

"No, I said the ritual could have destroyed England or created a miniature black hole. Now, I admit the black hole would have sucked -heh- get it Albus? But Mione and the geeks said it would consume most of England before losing cohesion from Hawking radiation and poofing out. Maybe fifty thousand would die, mostly Moldieshort's shock troops, and across the channel there would be some radiation burns. But as long as Tommy boy got sucked in, it would have been worth it. At worst the statute of secrecy would have fallen world wide, but Voldemort was planning to go public to the muggles the moment he killed me any way."

Dumbledore walked over to his chair and slowly sat in it, putting his face in his hands. "There were only fifty thousand souls left in England?"

"If you consider death eaters to have souls, then yeah."

The headmaster made a small jerk as he imagined this future that would have been.

Harry made a pained face. "Sorry, dark humor was the only humor left for us. I've known this for a long time and haven't been able to talk to anyone about anything. Like I said, I've gone a bit wonky."

Albus looked up. "Can we focus on something other than the deaths of millions for a bit? Why do you say you've gone peculiar?"

"Ah, what do you know about child psychology?"

"Formally? Not much, but I have been a professor for some time."

"Then you know that children are not little adults. Children don't think the way adults do. Their brains are structurally different."

"Oh my."

"You see the problem. Brodrick the Bloody's time travel principle says it's impossible to send mass back in time. Time turners get around this somehow, but are limited to a very short window. So we didn't send back mass. Well, electrons have some mass, but it's so little we were able to get enough magical power to send them back in time into my seven year old head."

"Merlin, that's what happened that night. Of course, July seventh of your seventh year, it would be the most easily targetable time of your life! There were magical disturbances across Europe that night, but no one could figure out what had happened."

"Quite. And so my twenty five year old mind got sent back into my seven year old brain, and we were all so busy working out the hows of the magic, no one thought of the consequences. And thus I'm a little off."

"I'm so sorry Harry. I failed, and the world and you paid for it."

"You're being a little self centered I think; sure you made some mistakes, but the fate of the world rests on no man's shoulders. Well, possibly mine, but that's prophesy for you; I'm fate's bitch."

The headmaster looked up. "Would you mind not swearing so much, it's rather disconcerting."

Harry snorted, "That's what's disconcerting? Not the slavery, death and torture of a few hundred thousand muggles and wizards alike? Not the mass migration of nearly the entire population of England as it's citizens fled the coming horror? Not the fact that the it got so fucking desperate that the good guys were willing to risk leveling all of the British Isles on a desperate bid for winning? Well too bad, I have no idea what my age is effectively, but I was 25 three years ago and I haven't been able to swear since then, so I'm going to fucking do it."

"Is this the bitching part you warned me about?" Albus asked dryly.

"No, but since you bought it up I think I'll start that since you want to delay the meat of the matter. Hey can you get me a Butter Beer? It's been so weird drinking muggle sodas, of course anything was better than the moonshine the resistance had."

"Certainly. Ditzy, come here please!" A house elf appeared. "Could you bring me two Butter Beers and a bottle of Ogden's Finest Firewhisky please Ditzy?"

"Ditzy would luv too massah, Ditzy be righ' back!"

The elf disappeared, leaving Harry confused. Before he could say anything though, Ditzy reappeared with the requested items. "Ditzy be back now. Heah ya are, massah. Izzear anythin' else you'ze be needin'?" 

"No Ditzy, that's all thank you."

Ditzy popped away after bowing. Harry's mouth was hanging open. "Did that house elf just have a Southern U.S. 18th century black slave accent?"

"Don't think about it Harry."

"I'm afraid I can't do that! I'm sort of stuck on that for the moment," the boy said as he snapped his fingers to pop the cap off the beer Albus had handed to him.

"Fine, long story short, I won Ditzy off an American plantation wizard in a game of poker a very long time ago. Now you seemed rather pissed about something. I figure if I listen to you complain, I'll be able to keep the genocide of the English people out of mind a bit longer."

"Ugh, where to start. The last three years have been hell," Harry began. "We had so many plans for me to start fixing things the moment I got back, but I can't think with this brain. Occlumancy helps, but it doesn't solve the problem. I'm afraid I won't be much help for some years yet Albus. All I can do is tell you what happened and what our plans were. The actual thinking and doing will be up to you."

"That is still an unprecedented advantage over the enemy, Harry. Considering you can't do magic yet, it might be for the best."

"Who said I can't do magic?" the boy asked, his wand appearing in his hand, and silently summoning the bottle of Ogden's Finest. "Don't worry, I'm just adding a few drops, Hermione swore she'd find a way to punish me if I started drinking too early. Heck, she'd tear open the space-time continuum if she found out about it, I bet. That's the real rub about coming back to a kid's body. All the things you could do as an adult you can't do as a kid. Can't swear, drink, fucking A, do you know what it's like not to be able to masturbate, let alone screw?"

"Speaking as a man who hit triple digits before you were born; yes, yes I do."

"Okay, but at least you got some use out of yours before it failed, I was a late bloomer- I got maybe twelve years, most of which were way too busy to have time to satisfy myself. And even if I wanted to drink, I can't stand the taste unless it's diluted to hell. I can't drink coffee, and I have to add a disgusting amount of sugar to my tea. Being a kid is hell if you know what you're missing."

"Well, at least puberty won't be a confusing time for you," Albus joked. "You implied you hadn't performed any of these plans, how did you get your wand in that case?"

"I haven't carried out any important operations, no. But I did some of the basic low risk ones that improved my life. Olivander is a seriously creepy guy, I didn't even need a plan for my wand. I walk in and he hands me the right wand and tells me 'good luck'. He didn't even take my money, just ushered me out of the store. I also stopped the Dursley's neglect and abuse by threatening to call child services."

Harry watched as Albus's face darkened and grimaced. "I'm truly sorry for allowing that to happen, Harry. If there had been any other way that could guaranty your safety, please understand I would have used it. But I could not predict when Voldemort would come back, and your having that protection was vital."

"We've been over this. It took me a long time to get over the fact that you kept sending me back to them for the greater good, but I did. It sucked, but it beat living in a third world country, for example."

There was a pause in the conversation, then, "Maybe we should return to the genocide now Harry." The old man said.

"Like the fact that my lack of proper preparation meant that the only person able to kill Riddle had neither the skill or any clues how to do it? A lot of us were sincerely hoping for the black hole option, It would have sucked in Tommy and his horcruxes, and since I was the main power source for the ritual, it would've fulfilled the prophesy."

"He has _multiple_ horcruxes?"

"We weren't quite sure of the number. Probably five, since seven is the magic number. We know he had been planning on using my murder to make one, probably the seventh, which meant he had six but died, leaving five. My scar is a link that forged the two of us together due to his preparing my head as a horcrux. It was incomplete, thank god, but when he is revived we will share glimpses of one another when one of us is particularly emotional."

"I need to stop for a bit Harry, and process some of this. Can we just sit and drink for a short rest?"

"Certainly, it's a lot to take in, I imagine. Hey, can you get out your pensieve? We developed a spell to copy and organize my memories specifically for this moment. It's a tough and complicated process, and there's a lot to go over, so I ought to get started on it."

Albus nodded and went to his room to retrieve it. "Your group sounds remarkably competent for being fugitive rebels," he called from his bedroom.

"We had good people. And while laziness is the mother of invention, and profit the father, necessity is the grand father; or something like that. We knew Earth as we knew it depended on certain spells, and we damn well made them."

Dumbledore returned and laid the device on the desk. It still had some memories in it, and the old wizard whisked the fluid with his wand, making the ethereal material ball up on the point like cotton candy. He withdrew the wand and started to stuff the wad of memories into a prepared flask, which he corked once he finished. He motioned to it for Harry, and sat down.

The boy nodded, and conjured a large piece of white construction paper that covered most of the office floor. Taking Albus's ink blotter, he poked his thumb with his wand, and bled several drops into the bottle of ink. Sticking his wand in, he stirred it a bit, and mumbled a few words before starting to draw runes in a large circle. He didn't need to re-dip his wand, as it was apparently drawing it from the blotter.

The Headmaster watched with some interest, it was a fairly standard arrangement so far, although few knew how to make runic circles anymore. It took skill to do correctly, and they were only needed for very complicated magic. The only use the common wizard or witch would see one for is if they were being treated for severe injuries at St. Mungo's. And there the runic circles were permanent, cast in gold sunk into the floor.

"It's good to see you kept up your studies, that's an art few ever learn."

Harry paused in his work, and glared at the older man. "Silence is golden; it's taking all the concentration this feeble kid brain has to do this without distractions."

Albus raised an eyebrow, but kept quiet as Harry returned to his task. 'Ah, here's the custom bits. Memory components, occlumancy stabilizers, yes, I see where it's going now. How intriguing.'

The Boy-With-Hyphens continued drawing and writing, crawling across the floor to reach various parts. The headmaster was happy to realize the lad had used an ink fixing spell, which prevented smudging. He really would have to reintroduce that cantrip to the curriculum; Albus had seen some of the essays turned in, and they were often a mess.

Harry finished his design, a cross between a Celtic knot and a pentagram, with the standard magical runes taught at Hogwarts woven throughout. Muttering a few words again, he ripped the corner of the paper off and wiped his wand with it. A silent levitation spell later, and the pensieve was placed just outside the circle.

Harry sat cross-legged in the center and focused. After a few minutes, the boy raised his wand to his temple and slowly extracted a shimmering silver blue thread. He drew his wand away slowly, lengthening the thread inch by inch. He took his other hand and used a finger to hook the filament on, then started pulling his wand back toward his head.

The memory was several feet long by the time the other end popped out of his temple, and Harry carefully lay the thread in the basin of the pensieve. As it touched the device, the thread melted into the curious fluid that seemed both liquid and gas. The boy wasn't done yet though, and immediately started to pull another string out.

The headmaster stopped paying attention, and started processing the information he had been given so far. While the news of this potential future was dismaying, the mere act of Harry coming back had changed things. And if they knew the future plans of the enemy, they could pre-empt them, at least at the beginning.


End file.
